Chet Gresham

Targets and Touches

Target Watch: Week 2

Here’s a team-by-team look at passing targets, red zone looks and snap count data. We'll have to wait until we get the week 2 numbers to start discerning the flukes from the patterns, but until then we can wildly speculate on these! Enjoy!

The Panthers did a good job of keying in on Larry Fitzgerald in this first game but he still led the team (surprise!) with 7 targets. Early Doucet led the AZ receivers in fantasy points but was third in targets. Unless that number increases, his value as a threat will decrease. Stephens-Howling was only targeted once while Beanie Wells was targeted 4 times. That’s a good sign for Beanie that he will be used even when they are behind and forced to pass. Or as the league calls it, quarters one through four.

Roddy White continues to be the target hog of old while Tony Gonzalez and rookie Julio Jones had healthy target numbers. Nothing too out of the norm here, except that Gonzo, despite being old as dirt, will continue to be productive and take some looks away from the young gun.

With the Falcons down for most of the game they were often in pass mode. Jason Snelling actually was in the game for 36 plays to Michael Turner’s 29 and Rodgers 22. Thankfully for Turner owners he averaged 10 yards a carry on his 10 carries. Adding to this tempest in the teapot is that Rodgers had two looks in the red zone compared to one each for Turner and Snelling. It seems the coaching staff has a lot of confidence in the rookie.

The Ravens are very much the Ray Rice show. Of his 24 total looks, 7 of them came in the red zone. But we already knew that Rice was a stud. What else can we learn here? The tight end tag team of Pitta and Dickson was won by Dickson even though Pitta did well with his 2 targets, catching both for 45 yards. Dickson also did well in catching all 5 of his targets, including 2 in the red zone. If this keeps up Dickson will be the guy to hold.

Ryan Fitzpatrick was almost too efficient to have a ton of passes in this game. We can’t take too much from the target numbers in this one, but digging deeper there is some interesting data. David Nelson had one more target than Donald Jones, but Jones was on the field for 25 more snaps and was targeted in the red zone twice to Nelson’s zilch. If this trend continues Jones is the guy to own here. And unless Scott Chandler sees the field more often (38 snaps), it will be hard for him to even come close to his big day again.

Cam Newton is smart enough to know to throw the ball toward the talent and Steve Smith got the majority of the looks (oh, did I mention he’s the talent?). Smith should continue to lead the targets each week. Otherwise the ball was spread around pretty well. The only receiver to see any red zone targets was Legedu Naanee. This could be a fluky stat, but it’s worth watching who between Naanee and LaFell pulls ahead, if anyone. Yes, that is what she said. Now stop it.

Here’s a team-by-team look at passing targets, red zone looks and snap count data. We'll have to wait until we get the week 2 numbers to start discerning the flukes from the patterns, but until then we can wildly speculate on these! Enjoy!

The Panthers did a good job of keying in on Larry Fitzgerald in this first game but he still led the team (surprise!) with 7 targets. Early Doucet led the AZ receivers in fantasy points but was third in targets. Unless that number increases, his value as a threat will decrease. Stephens-Howling was only targeted once while Beanie Wells was targeted 4 times. That’s a good sign for Beanie that he will be used even when they are behind and forced to pass. Or as the league calls it, quarters one through four.

Roddy White continues to be the target hog of old while Tony Gonzalez and rookie Julio Jones had healthy target numbers. Nothing too out of the norm here, except that Gonzo, despite being old as dirt, will continue to be productive and take some looks away from the young gun.

With the Falcons down for most of the game they were often in pass mode. Jason Snelling actually was in the game for 36 plays to Michael Turner’s 29 and Rodgers 22. Thankfully for Turner owners he averaged 10 yards a carry on his 10 carries. Adding to this tempest in the teapot is that Rodgers had two looks in the red zone compared to one each for Turner and Snelling. It seems the coaching staff has a lot of confidence in the rookie.

The Ravens are very much the Ray Rice show. Of his 24 total looks, 7 of them came in the red zone. But we already knew that Rice was a stud. What else can we learn here? The tight end tag team of Pitta and Dickson was won by Dickson even though Pitta did well with his 2 targets, catching both for 45 yards. Dickson also did well in catching all 5 of his targets, including 2 in the red zone. If this keeps up Dickson will be the guy to hold.

Ryan Fitzpatrick was almost too efficient to have a ton of passes in this game. We can’t take too much from the target numbers in this one, but digging deeper there is some interesting data. David Nelson had one more target than Donald Jones, but Jones was on the field for 25 more snaps and was targeted in the red zone twice to Nelson’s zilch. If this trend continues Jones is the guy to own here. And unless Scott Chandler sees the field more often (38 snaps), it will be hard for him to even come close to his big day again.

Cam Newton is smart enough to know to throw the ball toward the talent and Steve Smith got the majority of the looks (oh, did I mention he’s the talent?). Smith should continue to lead the targets each week. Otherwise the ball was spread around pretty well. The only receiver to see any red zone targets was Legedu Naanee. This could be a fluky stat, but it’s worth watching who between Naanee and LaFell pulls ahead, if anyone. Yes, that is what she said. Now stop it.

So with all the press about who was who on the Bears depth chart it didn’t really matter when it came down to targets. The target numbers are about as evenly distributed as you can get. Matt Forte is the clear winner here and most likely will continue to be the only safe fantasy play for the Bears week to week.

Looking at the number of pass plays run by each Bears receiver is interesting: Hester 33, Bennett 28, Forte 21, Williams 20, Knox 16 and Sanzenbacher 9, but for fantasy purposes we need one of those guys (preferably Knox and/or Bennett) to run 35-plus pass routes. I’ll call you when it happens.

Simpson and Gresham hoarded most of the targets in this tilt and if they had a seasoned quarterback I’d be all over both, but there are going to be plenty of growing pains in Cincinnati and that will most likely lead to inconsistency all around in the passing game. But it does make us double take on Jerome Simpson. He finished last season strong and was on many a sleeper list, but the addition of A.J. Green and subtraction of Carson Palmer helped quell the hype. It seems likely that Green, who does have elite skills, will edge ahead of Simpson in the target department. Can you wait it out? The tension is killing me.

Colt McCoy’s arm is more suited for tossing the ball to running backs and tight ends, which he did often. Hillis led the team in passing targets and rushing attempts. Montario Hardesty did have 5 rushes, but no pass targets. I believe that the every down back status for Hillis is safe.

Both Browns tight ends could be viable fantasy players if they weren’t on the same team. The Browns offense can only sustain so many fake football starters. They unfortunately don’t have Tom Brady throwing to them. Moore had 2 targets in the end zone and if that continues he will become more attractive in fantasy. And yes, Colt McCoy did catch his own pass for -5 yards.

Greg Little is the only receiver I trust to come out of this mess as a No. 1 receiver, but with only 3 targets he has a ways to go.

This breakdown looks about perfect. If the top 4 continue to get targets like this they will all continue to be every week starters on your team. Even the red zone looks were spread out between the big 4 with Jones 4, Austin 3, Bryant 2 and Witten 2. As long as they can stay healthy they shouldn’t hurt each others value as the season goes on.

It doesn’t look like Brandon Lloyd owners have much to fear (except fear itself). He will continue to be the No. 1 target week in and week out because he is actually pretty good at his job. We saw some good things out of Eric Decker and it’s good to see Eddie Royal get targets again, but for the most part this game was such a disaster it’s hard to judge what will happen from here on out.

Both McGahee and Moreno were unremarkable and their numbers are going to fluctuate dramatically until one of them steps up. The battle between Daniel Fells and Julius Thomas was won by Fells, but the fact that Julius Thomas got a red zone look and 3 targets says he is doing what he needs to in practice to get on the big boy field. Look for him to keep moving up the target list.

For some unknown reason Matthew Stafford threw the ball to Calvin Johnson more than any other receiver. Weird. These numbers seem to jibe with what we expected coming into the season. I was worried that we might see Tony Scheffler take away looks from Brandon Pettigrew, but he looks safe for now. Pettigrew ran 27 pass routes compared to Scheffler’s 10.

The red zone stats favor Nate Burleson with 3 targets to Johnson 2, Best 2, Pettigrew 2, Scheffler 1 and Harrison 1. And I’d be pushing hard for the fantasy world to go after Burleson if it wasn’t for the fact that Titus Young ran 23 routes, which makes him the statistical No. 3 receiver. After missing much of preseason it’s encouraging to see him out there that much. And if he continues to progress he could start taking looks away from Burleson.

This game seems like it was a month ago. The biggest news from these numbers are Jordy Nelson’s 8 targets. Were they at the expense of Jermichael Finley’s targets? Hard to say for sure, but it is likely that Finley’s numbers will normally be higher. He did run 30 routes compared to 19 by Nelson. The numbers between Nelson and Driver are what I’ll be watching closely and as we go along I believe Nelson will cut into Driver’s time.

The running back situation is the one most of us are interested in and there is no doubt who the man was in that game. James Starks was in the game for 47 plays compared to Ryan Grant who was in for 17. The worry for some was that Grant was more trusted as a pass blocker, but Starks was in on almost all of the passing downs. Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have your new Green Bay running back.

The Texans got up big and ran the ball 41 times compared to throwing it 24 times. That fact skews the target numbers some, but also shows you that no matter how the game goes, Andre Johnson will get his. Owen Daniels was a huge fantasy dud, but also was second in number of passing routes run and both his targets were in the red zone. He will bounce back from this one. After that it’s a bit of mess with limited data, but it is pretty clear that Jacoby Jones would pick up more work if Kevin Walter is out.

It’s hard to get much good information from this game except to say the Colts are in trouble, but you knew that already. They were down big and had to throw quite a bit and even then Reggie Wayne was the only fantasy beneficiary. These guys are toxic right now.

If you own Mike Thomas in a PPR league you have to be pretty happy with these 11 targets. If this keeps up he’s in for a decent season. After that the targets fall off a dark precipice into the fantasy abyss.

Pro Football Focus’ numbers tell an interesting story here. I noticed that Maurice Jones-Drew didn’t have one target and Deji Karim had three, and looking at their pass routes Karim ran 15 to MJD’s 6. Jones-Drew has been a PPR king, but this is something to pay attention to. The snap count that MJD was on can explain Karim’s 15 carries, but the passing routes are intriguing. Stay tuned. In fact, schedule it for Tivo.

Wow, that’s a who’s who of mediocrity. I think maybe those passes to Battle and O’Connell could have been better served for oh, Jamaal Charles? But I digress. The Chiefs passing game has been de-Weised and I’m not sure how they are going to recover. Dwayne Bowe still got his targets at least and that’s about all Bowe owners can hang their hat on right now. They have pills for that, by the way.

Dexter McCluster is an interesting case. He was on the field for 28 plays compared to Jamaal Charles’ 35. If you are a JC Superstar worshiper like myself you no longer need to worry about Thomas Jones who was on the field a whopping 3 times, but we do have to start keeping an eye on this McCluster fella.

The Dolphins are a PPRer’s dream with Marshall, Bush and Bess being targeted all over the field. Of course they were going against a 500-plus yard passing attack and have no real running game, but Chad Henne did look better than his normal, not-so-good self.

Brian Hartline’s 7 targets will most likely go down along with the inordinate amount of passes that Henne threw. But the workload of Reggie Bush should continue to stay high until he is hurt, so use him while you can.

With only 15 total targets it’s difficult to see what might materialize in a normal game (Viking fans better pray this isn’t normal), but we know that Percy Harvin and Adrian Peterson are the Vikings only real threats at this point and it looks like they are at least trying to get them the ball. Harvin also had 4 carries, which is good to see and will continue to be the focus of their passing attack, if you can call it that.

The Brady Bunch no-huddled the Dolphins secondary into the unemployment line/infirmary and had no trouble picking them apart for 517 yards, but sadly for us fake footballers Belichick could try the old no forward pass strategy next week. But for the sake of argument let’s say he doesn’t. We knew Welker would get his targets, but it’s never easy to decipher the distribution after that. Hernandez and Gronkowski almost split everything 50/50 and with so many targets to go around it worked well for fantasy owners of each. That won’t happen every time, but they are used like receivers and get red zone looks (each had 3) so you have to play them both.

Danny Woodhead had more carries than he’s ever had in his short life span. He’s serviceable in PPR, but don’t expect him to be the new running back in New England when they aren’t constantly in hurry up.

With Marques Colston out for a while and Lance Moore hurt for this game we can throw these numbers out the window and then get fined for littering. They are also skewed because they were trailing for most of the game and needed to pass more often than not. That fact puts a player like Mark Ingram at a disadvantage and one like Darren Sproles at the opposite of that. In a normal Saints game they will either be ahead or much closer and will use play action with Ingram, at least more so than this game where Ingram was only on the field 19 times compared to Sproles’ 32.

If Moore returns you can expect him, Meachem and Graham to get the bulk of the targets, but if he doesn’t, Henderson would once again see a hefty number.

Hakeem Nicks is the no doubt, go to guy for Eli Manning and Manningham, his non-kosher receiver, is his no doubt secondary target. After that? Anybody’s guess. Hixon and Cruz are battling it out for the No. 3 spot and Hixon looks to be in the lead, but unless Nicks is out that won’t matter much. Oh, what’s that you say? He may be out? Well, I’ll say Hixon would benefit the most from that scenario if it presents itself.

The running back breakdown is similar to last season, but for some reason Ahmad Bradshaw was in at the goal line when Brandon Jacobs looked perfectly capable of doing that job and probably better. We’ll have to see how that one plays out.

Mark Sanchez and company were down most of the game and were playing catch up by passing often. Santonio Holmes is still the No. 1 receiver, but Sanchez felt comfortable throwing it up for Plaxico Burress to go get. I didn’t see Burress getting much separation from defenders, but as long as Sanchez doesn’t mind throwing it his way you have to feel good about his chances of getting into the end zone. The same is true for Dustin Keller who had 3 targets in the red zone.

LaDainian Tomlinson stole the show from Shonn Greene once again. L.T. was in there mainly because they were passing so often and if the Jets are in the lead there’s a good chance you see Greene, but when they are behind Greene owners are going to be seeing red.

Heyward-Bey is the story here, but his inconsistency is going to make me want to see him have a few more games with this many targets and receptions. It’s not like he went off, but for him he did.

If you don’t know who Brandon Myers is, don’t worry; he’s filling in for Kevin Boss. Jacoby Ford hurt his hamstring and Denarius Moore didn’t get much work. Trying to find a usable receiver in this Oakland group is one of the 9 circles of hell.

Even though Jeremy Maclin only had 3 targets he was on the field more than any other receiver. His lack of looks is a little odd, but I feel safe in saying they will head back up into normal range next week and normal range is ahead of Jason Avant.

Ronnie Brown was only on the field for 10 plays compared to LeSean McCoy’s 57 so there is no time share there, but Brown did get two red zone looks. It’s worth monitoring, but McCoy’s workload should keep him in the fantasy money even if Brown vultures here and there.

The battle between Antonio Brown and Emmanuel Sanders seemed to have been won by Brown, but he only caught 2 of those 9 targets and Sanders’ 3 targets consisted of 2 red zone targets including a touch down. Add to that the limited preseason work Sanders had and they could just be easing him back into the offense. I’m leaning towards Sanders’ side in this title bout for the third wide receiver in Pittsburgh.

Mike Tolbert had an insane 11 looks in the red zone and he only got in 3 times, pfft. The coaches trust Tolbert more than Ryan Mathews and that’s probably not going to change soon.

If you are a Vincent Jackson owner you have to be a little perplexed as to his 3 targets after his nice preseason and just the fact that he is really pretty darn good. He was on the field for 83 plays and ran 52 routes and had 3 balls thrown his way. That has to be a little frustrating. The Vikings defense was in Philip Rivers face all day and gave them no time for plays to develop down field, so instead he threw it to Antonio Gates and Tolbert over and over and over again.

Ugh. This is about as bad as it gets, well, except for Minnesota. You aren’t going to find a fantasy relevant receiver or running back or tight end or quarterback or ball boy in this bunch so stop looking. Hey! I said stop.

What did I say about the Seahawks? Well, the 49ers offense isn’t much better. It runs through Frank Gore and Vernon Davis and that is it. And really it’s just Frank Gore who had 26 looks in only 52 offensive plays. That is exactly half. Do you think Seattle knew who was getting the ball?

The No. 1 receiver in this game as far as amount of plays was Brandon Gibson with 45 routes run. Of course Danny Amendola dislocated his elbow and for some reason came out of the game, but it shows you that Gibson is the guy they trust while Mike Sims-Walker only ran 29 routes and is not as trustworthy. With Amendola gone that number should increase for Sims-Walker, but Gibson is the de facto No. 1 with MSW and Lance Kendricks filling in for No. 2 and No. 3 duties. Hah, No. 2 Duties.

Mike Williams is the no doubt No. 1 in Tampa Bay and it’s not even close. When they want to score a touchdown they just throw it at him until he catches it or they kick a field goal. The No. 3 receiver after Williams and Kellen Winslow in this game was Preston Parker. He had 40 routes to Arrelious Benn’s 30. That number should move in favor of Benn as we move forward though.

LeGarrette Blount was on the field for a slim 13 plays while Earnest Graham was in for 46. That’s not how you want things to go if you own Blount. Graham ran 35 pass routes and only ran the ball 6 times. So it’s not hard to see what was going on there. You want the Bucs to get the lead or be close if you own Blount.

Kenny Britt should continue to get his looks along with Chris Johnson, but those are the only two we can rely on from week to week. I still have plenty of hope for Jared Cook and believe he is still going to have a good year, but even though he was on the field he just wasn’t seeing the ball. Nate Washington’s numbers look decent enough, but we just can’t count on him producing consistently even if his targets stay in this area.

Tim Hightower saw 47 percent of all the Redskins plays go through him on Sunday. He is officially the workhorse. And after Santana Moss, who will continue to be valuable, especially in PPR, we have a couple of battles for looks. Fred Davis and Chris Cooley, and Amthony Armstrong and Jabar Gaffney are fighting for your fantasy love and the only winner I see is Fred Davis. Rex Grossman likes him and he can stretch the field and go up and make plays. After than you are swimming in the cesspool of waiver wire fodder.